Newspaper's test of Big Daddy ice cream suggests it doesn't live up to low-cal claim

Associated Press

Published Monday, June 18, 2001

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Throughout the Southeast, dieters have been raving about vanilla Big Daddy ice cream -- 100 calories and two grams of fat for a 12-ounce serving.

Or so the container says.

Tests conducted for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel show that a 12-ounce serving actually contains 300 calories and seven grams of fat -- about the same as a chocolate doughnut

DeConna Ice Cream in Orange Lake near Gainesville has been making Big Daddy since 1995 and, until recently, it was sold mostly in convenience stores. But because of strong word of mouth among dieters, Publix, Winn-Dixie and Albertsons supermarkets have all begun selling it.

''I do not go to any (Weight Watchers) meeting on the face of the Earth, from Palm Beach County to Key West, where this product has not been touted as the manna from heaven,'' said Herm Vogel, executive vice president of Weight Watchers of Greater Miami.

Tim McCann, lab director at the Food Products Laboratory in Portland, Ore., which conducted the test for the newspaper, said he thought the ice cream's claims were too good to be true even before the tests were completed.

Looking at the ingredients, the claims just didn't seem logical, he said.

When told by the Sun-Sentinel of the test's results, Vince DeConna, president of DeConna Ice Cream, simply said, ''My God.''

At first, he said Big Daddy ''has a lot of air in it,'' which is why it could have so few calories.

But after consulting with his factory officials and seeing the test results, he said the cartons were mislabeled -- the ice cream's serving size should have been four ounces instead of 12.

''We're going to correct the cartons just as quick as possible,'' DeConna said. ''We've had this product on the market a long time. It's always stated that. We just didn't realize it.''